The Black Cat
by DwaejiTokki
Summary: Arthur, now in prison, recounts what led to the murder of his wife Guinevere.


The Black Cat

 **Summary** : Arthur, now in prison, recounts what led to the murder of his wife Guinevere.

 **Rating** : T

 **Disclaimer** : I own neither _Merlin_ nor "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe.

I expect no one to believe a single word I've penned here. Even I cannot bring myself to fully believe myself—except that I do, I _must_. There can be no other explanation but for the one I have derived from the evidence presented to me through the events of these past years…When my dear wife, Guinevere, said the creature was a witch in disguise, it was mere jest—it surely must have been! Nevertheless, a witch, a sorcerer it was…It must have been. But I will start from the beginning, write exactly those things which came to pass as accurately as possible, so that you, too, will understand that I am not mad.

I never was.

I remember wedding Guinevere. It was a grand ceremony, for its small number of guests—limited to a few family and friends, except my father, who did not approve of the marriage. She had once been a maidservant in my father's house. When I moved into my own manor, out near the edge of the moor, where the wind whistled through the heather, she came, ostensibly to offer her services. But, over time, I came to see her—love her—for who she was.

Guinevere was much more than a servant. She became my friend, then my lover, then my wife. From her I learned much, and she from me. We became each other's helpmates (though I must confess she bore the brunt of the load, our servingfolk and cooks notwithstanding). She had a good head on her shoulders, and her candid and sensible suggestions regarding matters of state to which it was my job to attend were welcome and intuitive.

Most of all, we shared a love of animals, and agreed to open our home to as many of them as we could sustain: horses and donkeys and dogs and birds and cats and, much to our chagrin, several mice and rats; and there were ferrets and rabbits and foxes, and one orphaned skunk we brought home from a walk to the marketplace. We knew each of them by name, and loved each of them dearly.

But there was one whom we both cherished above all: a black cat with a pair of startlingly bright blue eyes. We named him Merlin, after the wizened companion of the legendary King Arthur, and gave him the high honor of sharing the master bedroom. Merlin was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Life was bliss.

Then my father, the lord of several estates, became desperately ill, and his duties fell upon my own shoulders. For long stretches of time I was forced to leave Guinevere alone to care for our household. But as weeks turned to months, it was clear that my father was not recuperating from his illness, a deep cough which the family physician, Gaius, diagnosed as the White Plague. There was no cure, but at least there was time for him to settle his affairs.

Those affairs, however, he left to me. All of his estates and properties came into my hands, but with them came the responsibilities, the stress, the never-ending problems which I had with my own meager house; now it was compounded. I never got any rest.

I felt my bones shift within me, felt my spirit, restless with the ague of overwork, recoil from papers to be signed, from documents to be read, from peasants to attend—from everything. I no longer wanted any part of it, but I could not bear to part with the lands, not while my father still drew breath as best he could.

By the time my father passed, I had changed. Irreparably so.

Some evil Magic had compelled me to drink. Try though I might to ignore the substance, to send it out of the house, to deny myself, somehow the glass found its way to my hand, and then to my lips, and I drank. The drink had in it Magic. It changed me. It _possessed_ me.

I became another man—nay, less than a man: a monster.

At first, Guinevere tolerated my behavior. She understood, she said, sympathetic as always. But I could see in her eyes how she disapproved, how the change in me caused her pain.

My demonic behavior, I am ashamed to say, only turned worse.

I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Merlin, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—and at length even Merlin, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—even Merlin began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I grasped the poor beast by the throat, lifted him high, and hurled him across the room into the fireplace! The flames singed him merely before he escaped them, but still I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning—when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch—I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The patches of bald, singed skin presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness.

I came to loathe that cat more than anything.

One night, when Guinevere had taken leave to sit in the drawing room, I snatched up Merlin by the scruff of his neck and carried him outside to the barn and round the opposite side of it. He was quite silent then, blue eyes watching me as I prepared one-handedly, having a strong hold of him in my other.

I regret to inform you, dear reader, that on that night I secretly and abhorrently hanged Merlin from the tree on the other side of the barn.

Then I went to bed and slept peacefully through the night.

The next morning I woke in great spirits. I felt better than I had in a very long time, and I was convinced that, perhaps, it had been Merlin who had been the cause of my distressing change for the worse. Now that he was forever gone, I would return to mine old self, and Guinevere and I would live in bliss once more.

I found her still sitting in the drawing room, an unfinished embroidering in her lap. She was pleasantly surprised, to be sure, at the miraculous improvement in my mood, but she was certainly not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She accepted my invitation to take a walk to the market, and went up to get dressed for the occasion.

A knock at the door stopped her before had reached the landing, and she insisted upon coming back down again to see who was visiting so early in the morning. We answered it together, finding it to be the neighbor's errand boy with his hat in hand.

"Pardon," he'd said quietly, looking pale. "But I thought I should let you know, seeing how you love your animals, see, that…well, some other boys found him first, and have been, well, best not to say, I think…" And so on, for quite longer than rather I should have allowed, before Guinevere kindly interrupted him and asked what was the matter.

Upon hearing the news, she let out a horrified gasp and rushed out the door, wearing her indoor slippers. Of course, I could do nothing but follow, slipping the errand boy a penny for his due diligence in informing us.

Guinevere careened around the corner of the barn and stopped short with a cry. But an instant afterwards she was moving again, shouting sharply at the boys to go to, to drop the sticks and stones and run off, little miscreants! A group of them scattered in all directions, running off whooping and hollering, as boys are wont to do.

I rounded the barn in time to see Guinevere loosening the noose from poor Merlin's throat, and catching the cat on her bosom as though he were her own child. She moaned pitifully, mournfully, tearfully, and turned her doe-like eyes upon me. I could do nothing but stand and stare blankly. What emotions could I dredge up for that creature but hatred? And, now, relief at its passing?

"Who could do something like this?" she asked. "Who would?"

"We'll have a proper send off," is all I could say.

It was little comfort to her, but she recognized that there was nothing else to be done about it. No one would spare resources to hunt down a cat killer. So we still went to the market, though this time with a much grimmer objective, and obtained a few good planks to have the carpenter quickly fashion into a cat-sized coffin. From the safety of Guinevere's back, I shrugged helplessly at the carpenter, who had raised incredulous eyes to mine upon the strange request. But he completed the task nonetheless, and we returned with it to bury Merlin properly.

That night, I was aroused by cries of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, the servants, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts—and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire—a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a rope about the animal's neck.

When I first beheld this apparition—for I could scarcely regard it as less—my wonder and my terror were extreme.

For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the back of a ratty sofa. I had been looking steadily at the top of this couch for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat, fully as large as Merlin, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Merlin had eyes as blue as crystalline glass; but this cat's eyes were molten gold.

Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it—knew nothing of it—had never seen it before.

I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with Guinevere, who gave it the name Emrys.

For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but—I know not how or why it was—its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.

With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at once—by absolute dread of the beast.

I was indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast—whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed—caused for me so much of insufferable woe! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my heart!

Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates—the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. Emrys followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of Guinevere. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.

This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard—about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar—as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.

For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious.

And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brick-work. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself—"Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."

My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forbore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night—and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!

The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted—but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.

Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this—this is a very well-constructed house." (In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.)—"I may say an excellently well-constructed house. These walls—are you going, gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of Guinevere.

But no sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!—by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl—a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and eyes of raging fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!

End.


End file.
